The End
by Ultimagu
Summary: Deidre's Vengeance. Third in the Brianback Series.
1. Insane Revenge

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**(Story)**

Deidre Skye Brianbacks. A woman born on the outskirts of Manchester, she was a woman who cared for the planet; indeed, she cared for all living things in the cosmos. The Planet she could practically feel wilt beneath her feet by the wayward ways of men. Those who rose to power on the backs of their fellow man, and then swept their arm across their breast as if they could command the natural world around them.

Deidre looked down at the broken man beneath her. He had been like every other man before her. He had come to power as a boy. He was now leaving that power. He could no longer control it. His mind was broken by the ways it split. His body was broken by her own hand. Ten years she had spent on the sight beneath her feet. Ten years since that day. She had rewrapped him around her finger and had done everything, even break the finger itself to shatter him!

For it was he, who like other men, had grabbed the world by his hands in the attempt to carry it beyond the madness it had created in itself. He had had ideals and beliefs. He had had the power to make mighty powers crumble with a sweep of his hand. He had had the power to make women swoon, even those who had foregone the pleasure of their body or the pleasure of men. He had had the power to take bits and ends of string and wire to forge glorious monuments to the mammal called Homosapien's Triumph.

But he had long since forgotten the boy of his ideals. She saw that in him. He was not quite the man he had once been. He had fallen in love with his projects. He had become engrossed in the secrets of the universe. He had become awed by the splendor of the incomprehensible. He had become clever as a fox in the arts of politics. For all the ways of human life, the seven acts we play as men, he had played them all with flying colors.

He had taken 10,000 men and women and children and forged the greatest, shining achievement of man to ever exist. He had built walls that made the Great Wall of earthen China seem like a sand castle. He had fought wars with mighty empires, merely using tactics and even children and barely lost a man amongst them. He had gathered the heart and mind and soul of what made man, _man_, and morphed it into an utopia. In short, he had taken heaven by the balls and cast _it_ asunder into the plains below _him_.

But he was not God. His name was Mogul Brianbacks. He had been born on the outside of a city in the United States called Indianapolis. He had once been the child of a bigamist and a poor girl who had been too young to understand the implications of her actions. He had once been an extraordinary chef. He had sneaked upon the salvation of man and cooked his way into an after-life of the dream called Earth.

Yet here he was, broken minded, broken bodied, and still not yet broken in spirit. It was the thing she had loved about him, and she could feel, even now, the lash in her heart it caused to see him like this: bloody, an arm missing, his legs ground like dust. His mouth parting and opening to spout babble at her from the two mirror images in his mind: his split personality. Yet within it all, she could see the man she had fallen in love with. The strong and resilient man who cared with all his heart for the well being of his fellow man. The one who had gathered 10,000 miserable men and women and children and eased them from poverty and madness into true happiness.

She turned around to gaze at the longing images he had kept in this room: his room of peace, his room of solitude. Where he collected the pieces that had chipped off and rebuilt himself. All around, were images of her, of them. Their wedding, days in the field, the day they had discovered what the fungal blooms were really doing. She even saw a picture she could not recognize. An image of her when she had been first crossing the sea of the stars on the Unity. How he had saved it for, centuries, was beyond her. But his love for her was obvious.

Her eyes hardened, that was why she had to do this. For all of his greatest plans. For all of the eudomonia he had presented to the world, and joined hands together, he was a product of his own creation. He was just as evil as his father, and as innocent as his unwilling mother. Both of whom had died many, many years ago in the ashes of Earth, and yet still lingered within the soul of her beloved.

She turned again to look at him, and saw, not to her astonishment, the one and only Mogul Brianbacks using his only arm to slowly pull himself up. Despite the pain she'd inflicted upon his body and mind and soul, he could find the power within himself to stand. Or rather, to pull himself up. He winced but he did not cry.

She could feel it within herself, the Planet cried for his destruction. No matter how she had tried to reason through the pain of Mogul's betraying her, and the pressing desperation of the Planet, she could not forestall forever. It had taken ten years, but her own madness had broken through. The Planet, as a collected pysche, must know better than her. A poor pitiful woman who had been betrayed.

She took the antimatter-pistol in hand, something meant for executions. Leveled it as his head, her arms shaking. She didn't want to kill him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and kiss his worries away. To eradicate the pain he felt right now. But knew she could never return to that. Not after seeing his questioning gaze right before she had missed his heart and sliced his arm off.

Now, he stood as best he could. He stood there staring at her, already knowing her decision. But even for all his greatness she could see the wheels turning in his head. He couldn't fathom why. It was beyond him to be illogical. That was just his way...the way of his parents before him. Cold calculation with pure innocence.

In the background the sounds of rumbling and screams of horror could be heard. People were dieing as the two of them stood there and decided without words whether man should continue or not. For only Mogul Brianbacks had the skills and power to salvage man together. He had been planning to leave the destruction behind. To escape to one of the half terraformed moons where green plains could be seen for kilometers. Where the oxygen was just thick enough to breath, and mild enough to not burn or sting the lungs.

Yet Deidre could not allow that. She could not allow man to continue on with his madness. His ups and downs of preserve and destroy. Create and wither. In her heart, she wanted nothing more than to wrap him in her arms and move there with him to that moon, and grow old together through eternity.

The loud ringing that clashed against her ears ended any such dreams. Such, foolish dreams. He stood there, a moment or two longer, as blood ran down his forehead, before he fell back. Dead before he could blink, but defiant to the end.

In those few moments sanity called out to Deidre and she looked, almost innocently, at the sight before her. It was then she felt the presence of the Planet leave her. And it was then the screaming stopped. And it was then that the rumbling stopped. In the calm that comes before the storm, Deidre stood up straight, turned around, and saw a single tiny mindworm there in the doorway.

It looked inquisitively up at her, as if assessing her. Was she too worthy to live? Her sense of self-preservation was smashed into bits as she felt the psi waves assaulting her mind. She didn't bother to ward it off. There were too many. Billions, if not trillions of mindworms swarmed around her in a sea of psi waves. It was all she could do to keep from scratching her eyes out, or stabbing herself to death.

And in a moment, she felt nothing. She heard nothing, smelled nothing, tasted nothing, or even saw anything. She was simply no longer. Her body and mind torn to pieces by the mindworms.

It had taken a long time, but the mindworms had gotten the invaders out. Even destroyed their greastest enemy and ally, Mogul Brianbacks. They'd continue to do so too, to all those that didn't care for the fungal blooms and their orgasmic ways.

**(Story)**

**AN: December 6th, 2011: Hey guys! I hope you enjoy the time and effort I'm taking to crank out these edits for you. I'm not exactly working on what I keep telling people I'll be working on like _Tails Combined_ or _A Tale of History_, but I'm still preparing for my finals this week in addition to my son's first birthday on the 10th. Phew!**

**Anyway, I invite you to be very thankful for these edits at all and review! Reviews help feed my efforts to drag my aging ass out of bed and write these for you guys.**

**I don't care for flames, but I read them anyway.**

**AN2: If you guys want to read the sequel to this story there are two chronologically. There is either _After Mogul_ or _Divine Intervention_. _After Mogul_ explores what would happen after Mogul dies. _Divine Intervention_ takes a different idea and replants Mogul into a different past to try and bring humanity to peaks of heaven once more. For more information about the Brianback Series, look it up on my profile.**

**Author's Announcements:**

I know hardly anyone reads my profile (which wouldn't matter since it's out of date anyway), so I have posted these following announcements in all of my stories to let you formally know that I will be attempting to write chapters for most of my stories once again. I cannot guarantee anything, but I am most willing to make the effort.

That's the important part. Here come the details (your queue to leave if you want).

**Reasons Why I Haven't Been Writing:**

Well…geez, put me on the spot without time for cookies or milk. I haven't been writing mostly because of the combined dedications my life has required of me. In the time since I wrote _Memoirs of a Time Traveler_ I have done the following things, each further complicating my life as a burgeoning adult:

1. Began a polyamorous relationship.

2. Managed to get my girlfriend of five years pregnant.

3. Fought with the parents of the newest member of our 'Triad' in the Triangular relationship.

4. Finally given up the idea of trying to treat both of my girlfriends equal in public status and married my pregnant girlfriend (to avoid the evil state of Indiana's bureaucracy).

5. Had my mother-in-law move in to help us with bills.

6. Had a child whom we call Alex.

7. Managed to obtain a 35 hour job (which previously had been 20 hours since after #3 but before #4).

8. Have continued my undergraduate education throughout the entire process.

**Reasons Why I Will Begin Writing Anew:**

These are the reasons why I'm more optimistic about a renewed writing!

1. Resigned from my job since my boss is a douche and was probably going to fire me anyway.

2. Finals are over!

3. Looking for another job and taking care of Alex, but still plenty of free time from the additional hours (some 70 in my week) which have been freed up recently.

4. Because I hate to see 'abandoned' on my stories!

I look forward to presenting everyone with wonderful new material on old ideas. Let it be known, however, that not all of my lack of posting is from a lack of writing. I have written three chapters for various stories when my computer crashed around seven months ago. Don't blame me, blame the elves.

So, without further ado, I bid you welcome into a new age of writing by Ultimagu.


	2. Time Line

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**(Story)**

**2060:** The U.N. Unity is launched from Earth's orbit in a collective effort to abort the self-cannibalization that mankind has established on their home world. The goal of the Unity is to establish an independent colony founded on the principles of the U.N. Charter.

**2100:** Planetfall.

**2134:** Believer-Spartan Vendetta caused by sudden border tensions. Neither side believed that the other had truly made the terrible journey during Planetfall and denounced the other as a trick of the mind worms.

**2135:**A ceasefire is called for the Believer-Spartan Vendetta when contact is established with Lal who affirms that more than one faction survived Planetfall. Corazon refuses to let go of the territory taken from the Believers during the brief vendetta. (2134-2135).

**2219:** The Peacekeepers make a move to spread across the Hercules Channel to the tail of the Western continent where the Hive already dwells within their mines. This initiates the beginning of the Hive-Peacekeeper Vendetta.

**2289:**The Spartans intervene with a heavy military presence to end the Hive-Peacekeeper Vendetta which Corazon claims to have interfered with Spartan trade. (2219-2289).

**2349:**The Morganites take the opportunity to invade the northern part of the Central continent to take hold of its' rich resources. The Peacekeepers fight hard but cannot maintain control with the limits placed upon them by their previous vendetta. (2349-2350).

**2382:**The University launches a surprise attack on the Morganites after a mysterious sinking of the U.M.S. (University Military Ship) Nautilus. 150,000 lives are lost in the war, both sides sinking to desperate measures to win by the end. (2382-2383).

**April2474:** 10,000 citizens from each of the factions (Spartan, Hive, Believer, Peacekeeper, Gaian, University, and Morganite) declare independence and move to the Isle of Dexamenus. The World Council officially recognizes this independence after a vote despite Lal's and Zakrarhov's lobbying to crush the independence movement.

**August2474:**The Peacekeepers send a patrol fleet to invade the Isle of Dexamenus a few months after the declaration of independence in a very short Dragonite-Peacekeeper Vendetta. The Peacekeepers are thwarted and made a mockery of after the battle. Lal is forced to back off and sign over terms which claims responsibility for the war and agrees to reparation costs of 500 energy credits.

**2475:** The major construction is complete on Dragon's Keep, the northern base, and Dragon's Den, the southern and capital base, of Eye of the Dragon.

**2485:**The Second Dragonite-Peacekeeper Vendetta is wrought after a failed attempt to blame the Dragonites for a sinking cruiser. The ensuing battles cause devastating losses for the Peacekeepers and they are no longer considered a real rival to the University dominion in the far North. The Peacekeepers are on the verge of civil war.

**2500:**The Great Vendetta of 2500 erupts as shifts between Loyalist Peacekeepers try to reassert Lal as the head of a united Peacekeeper faction and the Confederate Peacekeepers who refused Lal as their 'chosen leader'. The lines were evenly split between the Spartans, Confederates, Gaians, Believers and the University, Loyalists, Morganites, Hive. The only undeclared faction is that of the Dragonites who even refused to participate in the World Council debate and vote on the matter. The war begins with a world population of 728,000.

**2502:**The Spartans launch a massive invasion on the Isle of Dexamenus to, hopefully, begin hopping northward against each newly surrounded Loyalist territory. The Battle of Siroquis places the Spartans at a weak disadvantage in the world politics while the Loyalists are initially invigorated to launching their own doomed invasion of the Morganite lands. The fleeing Spartan forces poison the surrounding waters with spent fuel cells. The day's ending population is 697,000 where it had begun at 718,000. This is the single most bloody day in all of Chiron's history.

**2507:** The Great Vendetta comes to a silent halt as a peace treaty is formed which decrees that the 'Confederate Peacekeepers' are to be a free faction and be known as the Pherals. Small, post-vendetta skirmishes cause major world shift changes as the Morganites reclaim the their lost territory from the University, the Peacekeepers and Pherals push the University to the far northern shore of the central continent, and the Believers and the Hive push the inward on the Spartan monstrosity. Major trends pop up during this time indicating further changes down the road; the Believers and the Dragonites take in over 20,000 new citizens each who are fleeing their war-torn homelands. The World Council cannot undo the building of the Great Wall around the Isle of Dexamenus. The world population is reduced to 450,000 over the course of seven years.

**2585:**100 meter long mind worms are discovered in the Great Ruins at the head of the western continent. Work begins just a month later on a means to contain the giant mind worms. There is little real hope of containing the monstrous mind worms.

**2587:** The primary dam is complete and the canal has been completely dug out. A protective barrier is in the process of being laid to keep the waters from soaking into the soil.

**2589:** The 500 meter long canal is complete and the secondary dam is also completed. Five of the six towering legs for the observation base are complete and the permi-cement in the moat is being inspected when communication is lost with the reconnaissance team inside the Great Ruins. An emergency decision is made and 2,000 lives are lost in the moat as they were uninformed of the opening like the other 3,000 were. The early matured mind worm is eliminated within an hour of its' awakening.

**2500:** The entire project is complete and only the smaller platforms on the dams need to be built along with the proper facilities on top of the observation base 500 meters above the ground. The world celebrates for weeks after averting from that disaster.

**2593:** Huban Ethan makes the first observations of the new mind worms and observes that their increased mass has weakened their psychotic abilities. They could not even communicate with one another it seemed. The observed mind worm was not, surprisingly, killed off after much paranoid talk and debate in an emergency meeting of the World Council.

**2601:** All but the University and the Dragonites have pulled their participation in the securing and observation of the new mind worms.

**2606:** The Dragonites secretly complete an underwater tunnel connecting the primary and secondary dam. The University remains suspicious of their activities, but the Dragonites continue to be very cordial and polite.

**2609:** A shaft and tunnel are completed connecting the observation base, New Hope, to the the previously built tunnel system connecting the two dams. The world population is now 590,000.

**2619:** A base is partially complete beneath the Great Ruins which will moved upwards and lock in place around the defenses the Dragonites have been installing and keeping them maintenanced. Zakrarhov cannot convince any of his fellow faction leaders that the Dragonites are planning something terrible. The University has secretly rebuilt its' weapon stores to a pre-Great Vendetta state in order to better combat the sudden surprise attack of the Dragonites.

**2621:** Large Tachyon cannons are placed on the dams after financial approval by the World Council. Two are placed outward on the primary dam to defend it from anyone crazy enough to wreck into the dam, and two are placed inward on the secondary dam to defend the dam workers from the mind worms.

**2631:** The Dragonites openly take control of the Great Ruins and raise the base facilities and new Great Wall around the site. Mogul Brianbacks, leader of the Dragonites, makes his first public appearance to denounce the world faction leaders saying that his actions were for the 2,000 Dragonite lives murdered without a second glance. The University fails utterly in its' first attempt to penetrate the Great Wall around the Great Ruins.

**2632:** The Morganites are bribed into joining the effort against the Dragonites which leaves only the Peacekeepers and the Pherals who refuse to take part in the vendetta.

**2639:** Major military actions begin marking the true beginning of the Second Great Vendetta. The Peacekeepers and Pherals are even huddled into the war effort against the Dragonites. Meanwhile, the Dragonites are working fervently to build their society up before the enemy takes to their gates. Early skirmishes do not bode well for UPAMB (United Peoples Against Mogul Brianbacks) which consists of the University, Spartans, Peacekeepers, Pherals, Believers, Hive, Gaians, and Morganites. The self-sufficient Dragonites in space begin to assimilate the smaller UPAMB satellites and stations.

**2640:**The Dragonites commence major space operations to cripple UPAMB. UPAMB deducts, months after Mogul's initial statement to the World Council, that the 2,000 Dragonite lives lost during the construction with the large mind worms is the cause of this new, hostile Eye of the Dragon. Mogul offers his terms at one Deidre Skye to be held responsible for the death of 2,000 Dragonites.

**2642:** Deidre returns from her imprisonment on the Isle of Dexamenus and is discovered to now be married. The husband to the once chaste Deidre Skye is heavily implied to be Mogul Brianbacks himself. Such a union means that UPAMB would lose an entire faction, very close to the Isle of Dexamenus, which would now prove to hinder them further should the Second Great Vendetta come to fruitation.

**2643:**Gunshots ring out as the Second Great War officially commences with the death of General Isaacs. The Civil Union of the Gaian and Dragonite factions is causing difficulties on the DG homefront.

**2644:** The siege of the Second Great Wall surrounding what had once been New Hope, the scientific recon station to observe the large mind worms at the Great Ruins, degrades to constant barrage between the two sides. UPAMB is too disorganized to fully adjudicate its' territories and armed forces.

**2645:**The Tachyon belt falls around the Second Great Wall and fighting inside of Dragon's Teeth begins. The numbers lost are a staggering blow to humanity.

**2650:**A formal blood truce is proclaimed with all nine dignitaries of the human race. The Second Great War is called to official close. (2631-2650).

**2653:**Tensions from the previous era continue. The Hive are a piteous ruin of their former self and Chairman Yang has sought help in the University contributing to Zakharov's renaissance. Deidre falls asleep into a coma due to a large disturbance from Planet.

**2685:** Deidre awakens from her coma. She sees the results of the previous 32 years and the changes shake her enough that Planet's installation of its' psyche into her persona awakens and she begins to plot the destruction of mankind's last haven in the Universe, the super-island state of Eye of the Dragon around the isle of Dexamenus. The End is nigh.

**2695:** Deidre finally snaps from the dual forces crushing in on her psyche. This is the first time that a Great Leader of the nine factions has snapped so finally. The closest example was Yang's brief decade in a punishment sphere to demonstrate the ability of the mind to overcome the body. The last of civilization on Chiron is wiped out. All that remains are the settlers on Alpha Rhea in orbit of Chiron under the reign of the heir of the United Factions: Eric Santiago Brianbacks.

**(Story)**

**AN: November 6th, 2011: Well it didn't take as long to do this story since it's a one-shot, but you should be happy I even put the effort into these darn things.**

**Reviews are appreciated. Money would be even more appreciated.**


	3. END

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**Alright folks, this is what I call the 'END' chapter. It's here for a place to respond to your reviews where it will not interfere with the regular part of the story. I find it absolutely necessary to keep everything I think and do in the process of creating and nurturing these stories as open as possible. The only way I could make these stories any more open and public is if I assassinated the owners of their respective copyright and then wrote in their wills that I was their sole heir to do with their creations whatever the hell I so pleased for the vanilla/canon.**

**Since I'm not, and am instead a lowly fanfiction writer making about three pennies a day because I find them in the couch and then subsequently lose them in the couch, you'll kindly refer yourself to my disclaimers and realize I am not some guy named Sid Meier. I'm Ultimagu. An alias, but an identity all the same.**

**I hope you enjoyed the story and all comments to your reviews will be posted below.**

**Review Commentaries:**

**Black Lotus Flower: **I'm glad to hear that! I tend to flourish when I don't have to write dialogue as much. I love to write descriptions and my academic papers tend to suffer for that same reason: too much description and not enough historiographical dialogue.

**RMcD94: **I don't know what I would think of a game that allows this sort of ending, considering it's really intimating at island-wide xenocide, a word I'm taking from Orson Scott Card.

**Numbuh six-sixtysix: **I think this is the first time I've been able to write your username without having to look. Phew! I guess that means you give me lots of yummy reviews for which I am eternally grateful!

To answer your question, _The End_ was my original attempt finally kill off the Mogul Brianback Series. I had been writing the series for so long, including the original _Eye of the Dragon _which got deleted back in 2006 due to my frustration at writing (which included three wars with the Peacekeepers, and three wars with the Gaians before Mogul was ever taken seriously) that I was ready to just quit. _The End_ was intended to be a one-shot end to the entire thing. In the end, ironically enough, I couldn't leave the world I had created alone and tried to respawn that feeling from the earlier stories through Eric Brianbacks in the subsequent _After Mogul_, and eventually in the grandchildren of Mogul Brianbacks in _Xenocide_ when my creation of Eric did not stand up in measure to his father.

As I'm sure you know, that officially killed off the Original series more than anything: bad writing and no motivation. On the other hand, as I've mentioned elsewhere, it was a conversation on Dungeons and Dragons in high school that revitalized my interest in Mogul Brianbacks and brought him back to life, literally and figuratively, in _Divine Intervention_. The entire Brianback Series is a little convoluted, but I have done my best to make the parts mesh together in the Alternative Brianback Series in order to give a continuance which did not exist in _After Mogul_ and _Xenocide_.

My current revitilization project, however, is aimed at breathing life back in to all of my stories: not just the ones that desperately needed it.

I hope that explains the past summarily.


End file.
